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Roseanna has pledged to fight to protect Scotland’s NHS by calling on David Cameron to use his veto to protect the NHS from the effects of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Today she signed the pledge board, provided by the trade union Unite, demanding that David Cameron vetoes TTIP unless the NHS is “fully and clearly exempted” from the agreement.

She said:

“Protecting the NHS is rightly one of the most important priorities of people in Scotland and the duty we have to protect it is something the SNP takes extremely seriously.

“That is why I – along with my fellow SNP MSPs - have pledged that if TTIP does not explicitly exempt the NHS from the agreement, then we will call on the Prime Minister to veto the agreement.

“Scotland’s NHS as a publicly owned and operated institution is too important to be put at risk from TTIP. It must be protected and the SNP will always do everything in our power to ensure that happens.

“This issue underscores the need to have a strong Scottish voice in the House of Commons after the General Election to ensure that Westminster does not lose sight of the things that are most important - starting with the NHS.

“Protecting Scotland’s NHS will always be an SNP priority and I was proud to be able to sign this pledge.”

The text of the pledge is as follows:

We, the undersigned, believe that the provision of public healthcare by the NHS is much too important to be put at risk by the EU-US trade agreement, known as TTIP.

In particular:

TTIP must not restrict the scope for decisions by any level of government, public authority or NHS organisation relating to public healthcare;

TTIP must not give current or future US investors new rights that they could use to sue any level of government, public authority or NHS organisation because of their policies or actions relating to public healthcare.

We therefore call on the Prime Minister to make a clear statement to the European Trade Council that the UK will veto TTIP unless the NHS is fully and clearly exempted from the agreement and to use the veto if that exemption is not achieved.